Money Wisdom #35

"Money (especially as coinage) tends to promote an indefinite network of indiscriminate exchange that transcends the defined personal relationships to be found within in the family, within various social groupings, or within networks of gift-giving and barter. Whereas the Homeric gift is invested with the personality of its heroic donor, the only kind of person that money resembles is the prostitute. For Shakespeare it is 'the common whore of mankind'. The prostitute, like money, is impersonally promiscuous, transcending the restricted sexual relations required for the reproduction of the household."

Richard Seaford Money and the Early Greek Mind 2004 p.156